Vanessa flicked her hand as if casually bidding at some silent auction. He nodded at her. “Vanessa?”
“How will Eve be woken? If we can’t see anything, how will we know when it’s time?”
He’d expected her to ask about Eve’s refusal to let them poke about in the hidden areas of the ship. The question took him off guard, and so the ship responded before he could. “Timing, Vanessa. My velocity and destination are known, and a very small subroutine running on a fully shielded subsystem is safe to leave running. It will wake me at the appropriate moment.”
“And how accurate is that?”
“Within a millimeter,” the ship replied. “I hope that shall suffice.”
Vanessa grunted a single laugh, impressed and bemused all at once. Then she seemed to remember she was supposed to be angry, and said nothing further.
“What if something goes wrong?” Vaughn asked. “If the disguise doesn’t work, or we collide with something.”
“Tania and I,” Skyler said, “have the ability to wake Eve manually. I hope none of you take offense, but it’s best if we keep that knowledge to a minimum. It should be a last resort.” That seemed to satisfy the man. Skyler glanced around the clearing. “Anyone else?”
No one spoke.
He waited anyway, almost hoping an alternative would be voiced. Some genius plan he could embrace, smacking himself later that he hadn’t thought of it. But no such luck was there to be had. They were following him, for better or worse.
“Okay,” he said. “Prumble’s got a list of the remaining supplies we need to haul in here and figure out where to stow. Eve has dug us a cave. I say we use it for storage and sleep out here in the, er, open, but I’m happy to defer to Prumble on that.”
“When it comes to underground storage, I’m your man,” Prumble said. “Not as tidy as the garage back in Darwin, but it will do. The tricky bit is that we’ll be adrift during this lunatic plan—”
“Hey!”
“—so we have to make sure everything is secured. And, it’s going to get cold in here. Really, really cold. This little glowy thing Eve has provided here,” he said, pointing to the orb-shaped campfire floating between them all, “is our only allowed source of heat, tuned to ensure not a scrap of its output reaches the hull. That means we need to either wear our fancy armor, or have Eve manufacture us some blankets.”
—
By the end of the day the interior of the forest biome sphere looked more like a forward operating base in a fresh war zone rather than the quaint forest glade it had been only hours before. Eve had manufactured tentlike bubble structures for them, each outfitted with gear that looked suitable for a trip to Antarctica…if Antarctica had no gravity. A small pyramid of dark pellets lay off to one side of the clearing under a mesh. Each pellet could generate heat for several hours, once placed inside the campfire that now hung suspended from four large trees at the center of the biome. A crude but workable zero-g heater.
In the cave, which Skyler estimated was perhaps a hundred square meters in size, and three meters tall, bundles had been stacked against the walls containing reserve food—in the form of nutrient packs that tasted a bit like peanut butter—medical supplies, and water. All of it had been lashed in place with strong, stretchy rubberlike cords.
“Where do we, um, deposit our waste?” Sam asked, when all the preparations had been made.
“Ah,” Prumble replied, and began to move toward the cave.
“If you show me a diaper there’s going to be mutiny. I am not joking.”
The big man roared a laugh all the same. “Please, give me a little credit.” He led the way into the cave and to the back wall. The whole group had followed him. “I spent more time than I care to admit locked in one of the climber-car toilets when I made my way up the Darwin Elevator. Enough time that I basically memorized it. With Tim’s help, I provided Eve with a schematic and she’s re-created the commode here for us. Zero-g friendly and all that. You can even shower in here if you’re brave enough.”
“Commode?” Skyler asked. “I seem to recall you referring to the thing as a shitter-coffin.”
Prumble shuddered at the memory. “A public relations campaign was in order.”
He showed them all the basics of how it worked, how fresh water was piped into it, and where the waste products went. “It really is a full ecosystem she’s created in this sphere.”
“Too much info,” Sam said. “Diapers might have been better.”
“Okay, enough on this topic,” Skyler said to the group. “I think we’ve got what we need to survive in here. Eve? Status?”
“The edge of sensor range is coming up in four hours. I would prefer our radiation signature is masked before then, in case their ability has improved. I will have to terminate our braking maneuver soon, too, at which point you will lose the sensation of gravity.”
“Just tell us when, we need to make sure everything is properly secured, anyway.”
Back in the comparatively open space of the biome, he made for the clearing. The others stayed behind to continue organizing their supply cave. He found Tim in the circle between the trees, double-checking the cords that would hold their only heat source in place.
“How’s it going?” Skyler asked.
Tim glanced at him, then back at his work. “Thought you were avoiding me.”
Skyler studied the younger man. Thin, lanky, with a long face and puppy-dog eyes. A shadow of a beard graced his chin now, though it did little to advance his youthful appearance. “Why would I do that?” The lie came easily.
Tim paused his efforts and came to face Skyler, as if this were some playground confrontation. Skyler just stood there, waiting, wanting to be somewhere else.
“You were gone,” Tim said. “For months, not a word. She thought you were dead. She told me that. We played table tennis, me and her. I made her laugh.”
“Tim—”
“Then all of a sudden you’re back. The big hero. And everything changed. Between me and her. Between you and her. Between all of us.”
“I don’t—”
“Let me finish,” he said. Almost barked, but not quite. He didn’t have it in him to bark. “You came back as if no time had passed at all.”
“Well, technically—”
“I know. Just…I have to say this.”
Skyler spread his hands, an invitation.
“Now we’re all here,” he went on, glancing up at the glass dome and the trees, “and we can’t avoid each other. Can’t pretend this doesn’t bother us. You can’t give me tasks that keep me far away from her.”
“I haven’t—”
“You just listen.”
“No,” Skyler said, and this was a bark, so sharp Tim’s chin snapped up and his eyes wavered. “You listen. I’ve had enough of your manufacturing of tension. It’s a distraction of the worst kind. We’re all in this together and we can save the love-triangle bullshit until it’s all done and over. We’re friends, all of us, and we’re going to act like it. Nothing more until we wave goodbye to Eve and settle into a normal life back home. Then, and only then, will I talk to you of what is or isn’t in Tania’s heart. Which, by the way, is a matter totally out of our control.”
The tirade was so out of character for Skyler that for a moment Tim could only stand there, mouth slightly agape. Finally, he composed himself. “That’s where you’re wrong, Captain. Fine, we’ll table this, but if you persist in keeping Tania and me from working together, I’m not going to stand for it next time. I’ll point it out, in front of everyone. Then you’ll know what a distraction really is.”
He stalked away, toward the cave.
—
Skyler floated among the trees, Tania at his side. He dodged a branch and used another to alter course. Ahead, a sleeping bag tumbled toward the clear shell of the biome.
“Can’t reach it,” Tania said. She’d propelled herself too soon and sailed past the loose object.
“I’ve got it.” He
pushed himself forward and intercepted the puffy red ball of fabric just before impacting the outer wall. “There,” he said, tucking the bag under one arm. “Little bastard.”
“That’s the last one,” Tania said, her voice full of exhausted relief.
Skyler grabbed her by the elbow, gently but with enough strength to bring her to a stop beside him. She turned and met his eyes.
For a second he considered telling her of the confrontation with Tim. But something in her eyes changed his mind. “What did you and Eve talk about?” he asked.
Her gaze fell to the damp soil at their feet. “Not now…”
“Do we need to delay this? Call it off?”
“No,” Tania said. “It’s just…she told me what happened, what the Captors took their system for. It’s”—she paused, searching for words—“heartbreaking.”
Skyler looked into her eyes and saw the truth of it there. And something more as well. Something that had been absent before. Determination, maybe. “When?” was all he could manage.
“Once the lights go out,” Tania replied. “We’ll have plenty of time then.”
He followed her back to the clearing, and tucked the loose item back into the tent from which it had spilled when the Chameleon had begun the long coast in-system.
“Just in time, too,” Skyler said. “Twenty minutes, people.”
A chorus of acknowledgments came to him from all over the spherical room. Sam and Vaughn were busy wrestling a loose food crate back into the cave. More damn nutrition paste, Skyler noted with dread. Prumble worked to ensure the airlock door was both secure and yet operable when left unpowered. Occasionally he spoke with Eve and minor adjustments were made to the mechanism. The AI’s ability to reshape and modify the ship continued to amaze Skyler.
Funny, he thought, how despite all this incredible technology, they were getting ready to live like off-the-grid campers. Here, hurtling along between the stars in an unimaginably advanced alien spacecraft, they’d be roughing it.
Tim and Vanessa collected fuel pellets that had managed to slip free of their netting. Done, they joined Skyler and Tania by the fire-globe. After a few minutes Prumble announced his satisfaction with the airlock and came to the center of the space as well. Sam and Vaughn emerged from the cave shortly after, and with a thumbs-up Skyler nodded and took them all in. “I guess that’s it, then.”
“Guess so,” Sam said.
The others nodded.
“Okay.” Skyler deactivated the electric lamp installed on the chest plate of his armor. His helmet was secured near the airlock door along with everyone else’s, powered off as well. “I need everyone’s full attention.”
The group settled down. All eyes were on him.
“In a few minutes the ship will shut down and we’ll be utterly alone in here. In the dark. In the cold. No way to stop, no way to even know what’s going on outside until we reach our destination. And when we do get there it’ll be the seven of us against an enemy that has taken an entire solar system hostage. An enemy for which even our host admits her intelligence is centuries out of date.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it, Sky,” Sam said.
He glanced at her, smiled, but only half so. “We all need to be at our best. It’s the age-old military pastime of hurry-up-and-wait. We’ll be stuck in here together for weeks in near total darkness.” From the corner of his eye he caught Tim shoot a hurried look at Tania, then at Skyler, and then to the dirt. I’m not thrilled about the arrangement, either, friend, Skyler thought.
Tania had asked Eve, early in the planning of this, why she couldn’t leave them enveloped in a time compression bubble, as they had been for most of the time since leaving Earth. The ship could not go faster than light, nothing could, but with the Builders’ ability to create pockets of dilated time, their journey so far had only seemed to take a few months. Her answer had been blunt. The time-altering spheres, which she’d been using liberally to make this whole journey pass in weeks instead of centuries, required incredible amounts of energy. So much so that, no matter how much hull shielding they added, the Chameleon would be radiating with brilliant, obvious intensity as it came in-system. What’s more, it would mean a very dulled reaction time for the crew. With no sensors available to disable the bubble due to some problem, it would have to be manually turned off when one of the crew discovered a reason to do so, which could mean minutes or hours had passed outside. Likely too late to do anything about whatever problem had compelled the action in the first place.
Skyler went on. “I was in the military back…well, before, you know…and so I’ve been in situations like this. Boredom will set in. We’ll get lax. And then we’ll come out the other side and…well, who knows what will happen, but I can imagine it will be more insane than anything the Builders threw at us back on Earth. So I’m asking you all right now to keep on your toes. Do what you can to stay focused and alert. Keep track of the rest of us, too. We won’t have comms or biometric anything. Just us, in here, surviving. It’s the moment of truth. Point of no return.”
“We get it, for fuck’s sake!” Prumble roared, grinning.
Skyler shot his old friend a look. Prumble seemed ready to launch another salvo, caught the stare Skyler had leveled on him, and thought better of it. “Sorry, mate.”
Nobody else said a word. Skyler saw himself reflected in their faces. Determination, and though perhaps not courage there was something else. A touch of reckless arrogance that just maybe was what made humans so suited to this mission. That willful blindness that welled up when faced with the unknown or the insurmountable. He could see it in each of them even as he felt it in himself, all despite the tiny voice somewhere in the back of his head shouting, “What the hell are we doing out here?”
“Eve?” he asked.
“Yes, Captain?”
“We’re ready. See you on the other side.”
Place Unknown
Date Unknown
ALEX WARTHEN WOKE a blind man.
He floated, but not due to the tendrils he’d grown so used to. This was different. This was nothing at all. Nothing around him, not even the vast emptiness of space. No stars, no clouds of gas. He could see nothing. Feel nothing. He was blind in an empty void.
Sensory deprivation, she’d said. What did that mean? To float in nothingness until he starved?
Or ran out of air.
Air.
Alex inhaled. There was air. Frigid, so cold it brought a sting to his throat and lungs. The recognition of this made his whole body erupt in shivers. He fanned his face all the same. He wanted to feel the air on his skin. An ice-cold breeze caressed his cheeks. He felt it. Alex pondered that for some time. He could feel the air. He could hear his inhalation. He could taste his own breath, smell the stale sweat of his unclean skin. Did she think his senses were limited to sight? Or did she plan to deprive him of his senses one by one, cataloging the differences for her goddamn “test”? The Builders seemed rather fond of testing subjects, even entire planets, for no fathomable reason.
He felt something else too. A sense of motion. His inner ear telling him of a gentle shift no doubt brought on by the motion of his hand. He’d put himself into a spin. Alex reached up tentatively and touched his own cheek. Despite being nearly numb from cold, he almost whimpered at the tingle of sensation that danced from his fingertips to the rough, stubbled skin. It was the first truly real sensation he’d felt in…he couldn’t even guess how long he’d been in this horror of an afterlife.
“Hello?” he called out. The sound echoed back to him a split second later. Not an endless void, then, but a room or small chamber. Perhaps this was still the shared dream, where he saw one thing and Jared saw another. Maybe he saw nothing, but could feel and speak and hear, while Jared saw only some maze devoid of gravity, but could not talk. Or hear. Or smell. In a queer way it was a mildly interesting conundrum, one that even Alex could find in himself a vague interest in how two people might solve it. If such a test had a point or not, he n
o longer cared.
“Hello?” he shouted again. Nothing but the echo came in response. Alex tried to swim in the air, but if it resulted in real movement or not he couldn’t tell. He felt like he’d put himself into a pretty good tumbling roll, but without the visual cues this sensation came purely from the shifting air on his skin. He had no possessions, nothing to throw in one direction in order to push himself in the opposite. He could do nothing but float, and hope he was not motionless in the center of some cell, forever doomed to not touch the walls.
An idea came to him. He turned his head as far as he could and inhaled deeply, ignoring the tingling burn of the icy air. Lungs full and screaming at him, Alex turned center again and made an O with his mouth. He breathed it all back out in one long blast. Again. And again. With no light he could not tell if his improvised rocket engine of a mouth was making any difference at all in his position. His mind filled with half-remembered science lessons about equal reactions and conservation of momentum. And the likelihood that he was merely pushing himself into some faster and faster spin without actually going anywhere. To hell with it, he thought. At least he was doing something. After a time, his lungs could stand no more of the icy air. His whole body buzzed with the cold’s numbing bite. He gave up, and fell asleep.
An odd thing to only have sight while dreaming. He knew he’d woken when the blackness returned. Something was different, though. Pressure. A weight against his back. He reached slowly, very slowly so as not to move away from whatever this object was, and felt a smooth flat surface. Through some instinct he didn’t know he possessed Alex forced his curiosity to the back of his mind and allowed himself only the lightest brush of his fingertips. To start groping at it would only push him away. For a long moment he found himself trapped between two options. The extraordinary desire to stay near this surface, the only thing he’d encountered so far in this place other than air. But on the other hand, a surface could be pushed off, used to propel himself perhaps to some other, better, place at great speed. He decided if he did start to drift away that he would kick and punch as hard as he could. Send himself rocketing to the other side of whatever this place was. Hopefully.
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